


Cold Reality

by octopus_fool



Series: Khazâd October [1]
Category: The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: Coming of Age, Family, Gen, Khazâd October, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-04
Updated: 2015-10-04
Packaged: 2018-04-24 19:18:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,334
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4932091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/octopus_fool/pseuds/octopus_fool
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fíli kills his first orc, but it isn’t quite like he expected it to be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cold Reality

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Khazâd October](http://a-grump-of-dwarves.tumblr.com/post/128714611270/khaz%C3%A2d-october), Day 1 – Fíli.

Fíli stared down at the dark spot spreading across the dirty clothes. Black blood. He had heard about it in the tales, in his lessons. But somehow, actually seeing it seep out of the wound his sword had torn was unexpected. Thick and slightly slimy, it glistened in the light of the full moon and the burning torches. Despite its strange colour, it didn’t seem any less real than the blood that flowed through Fíli’s own veins.

The orc stared back at Fíli and grimaced. Fíli wasn’t sure whether it was still trying to intimidate him or was merely reacting to the pain. The orc growled and Fíli nearly jumped. The growl turned into a gurgle and the orc’s eyes became glassy. Fíli held his breath, trying to see if it was still breathing, still alive, or if Fíli’s sword had done its job. The orc lay still, the only motion the expansion of the black patch on its clothes. Fíli let out a shaky breath. The orc was dead. He had killed his first orc.

He should pull the sword out of the orc’s chest, Fíli knew. Pull it out, perhaps slice through the orc’s throat to make absolutely sure it was dead, then return to the fight. But Fíli couldn’t stop staring at the orc.

“Good job.” His uncle’s hand on his shoulder. It lingered, just long enough to shake Fíli from his trance.

Fíli grasped his sword and pulled it out of the corpse. Thorin half kept an eye out for any orcs that might attack them and half watched him, sending him a questioning look. Fíli took a deep breath, nodded and they rejoined the fight. 

 

Fíli’s Amad strode towards him as they trudged through the main street of the town. The word that the hunting expedition had encountered orcs must have spread quickly, Fíli realized.

“Were you injured?” Dís asked briskly, her voice as business-like as if she were discussing the price of coal.

Fíli shook his head. “No, I’m fine.”

Dís scanned his face, her eyes immediately settling on a small scratch on Fíli’s forehead. “That is everything but fine and you should know that from your lessons. You will go to see Óin immediately…”

“Amad, I really am fine,” Fíli interrupted her. “That was not an orc weapon, I got it from a low-hanging branch on the way back.”

Dís turned towards Thorin. “Is that true? Did he get that cut from a tree?”

Thorin nodded. “Yes. Don’t you think I would have made sure he got the correct treatment if it had been an orc wound?”

Dís huffed, but some of the tension left her shoulders. Fíli could see her giving Thorin the same examination she had given Fíli, but her voice showed none of her worry towards her brother. “You need to keep a better watch on the area. You assured me there were no orcs for miles and miles. If you are accosted on a simple hunting trip, the area is in no way as safe as you thought it was. You should have taken proper security with you, as is fitting for a journey on which both you and your heir go. Both of you….”

“Your boy slew his first orc today!” Dwalin interrupted, slinging his arms around Dís and Fíli. Fíli wondered if it was possible that Dwalin had already managed to drink an ale or two. “He can look after himself, we did well with that one. You should have seen him, Dís, sounding the horn to warn about the attack and already taking on the first two orcs at the same time! Didn’t take him long to put his sword through one of them and he must have killed at least half a dozen after that. I’m not sure we would have gotten away so easily if it hadn’t been for Fíli!”

“You killed an orc?” Kíli asked, having joined the group too. “What was it like?”

His eyes were wide with admiration and for the first time ever, Fíli could make out every year that he was older than Kíli. The gap between childhood stories and cold reality suddenly lay between them, leaving Fíli feeling bereft.  
He struggled to come up with a reply.

“It stank,” Fíli finally said. Whenever he thought about it, the stench from the orc seemed to rise in his nose again, unpleasant in its rank odor of sweat and filth, almost unbearable when the metallic smell of blood and fear was added.

“And thanks to Prince Fíli, we rid Middle-earth of another pack of filthy, stinking orcs!” Dwalin exclaimed. 

The dwarves that had gathered around cheered. 

“Let us celebrate and sing of the great deeds of battle!” Someone else took up the call. “Fetch ale, food and harps!”

Fíli felt himself be swept away by the crowd of well-wishers.

 

Fíli breathed in the clear night air. It felt like the first moment he had had for himself since the orcs had attacked, the first time he could stand still after the battle, their rush back to the mountain settlement and the celebration that followed. The celebration was still in full swing. Fíli could hear a chorus of drunken dwarves singing about how heroic Prince Fíli had killed a dozen orcs with a single sweep of his blade while alerting his companions and half of Eriador by blowing a horn of pure gold. 

Heavy boots thudded on the wooden floor behind Fíli. Fíli turned around, slightly reluctant to have his solitude broken already. Thorin nodded at him wordlessly and Fíli shifted to make space for him.

Thorin tapped out his pipe, reached into his pocket and took out his pouch of pipe weed. He offered some to Fíli who accepted and took out his own pipe. The lit their pipes and smoked in silence, snatches of the song drifting out to them.

Finally, the song ended on a particularly enthusiastic refrain praising the great deeds that had taken place that day.

“It didn’t feel particularly heroic,” Fíli remarked, the words breaking free almost against his will.

“No, it doesn’t,” Thorin agreed. 

“They all seem so joyous about slaying orcs. It only… it just felt like I had killed someone.” The words didn’t seem to adequately express what Fíli meant. He tried again. “In the stories, they are just orcs. They don’t have faces. But I remember that orc’s face.”

Thorin nodded. “I do too. Later on, they stop having faces. I don’t know if that makes it better.”

“I don’t know if I want them to stop having faces.”

“They just do. I feel no joy in it either, no glory or honour. Maybe some do, maybe everybody just sings those songs like they drink ale: to put the blood and the stench out of their minds, to burn off the rush of the battle. For some, there is satisfaction in it. I just know that if I kill an orc, it won’t kill me. It won’t kill my family, or anyone else’s. You’ve seen some of the things they will do. We older dwarves, we’ve seen even more of their atrocities. When another orc is dead, there’s just a dull sense of relief, nothing more. They turn it into more, into heroics. We become kings of great deeds that Durin himself would have been proud of. It inspires courage for the next battle. It makes dwarflings swing their swords and axes with greater enthusiasm during practice, makes them become capable warriors when they grow up. We uphold the image to make sure we get that dull sense of relief again. We live.”

Fíli nodded, exhaling a thin trail of smoke. Perhaps he could come to see it that way. 

And now that his doubts were no longer buzzing around his head quite as loudly, a realisation that had been growing in Fíli all evening found its way into words.  
“You didn’t kill two hundred orcs in your first battle, did you?”

Thorin laughed. “No.”


End file.
